Coelebs: The Love Story of a Bachelor

“I can’t act,” he said reproachfully. “You’ve hurt me. I’m feeling sore, Miss Annersley.”

“Don’t be silly,” Peggy admonished him. “You needn’t look sore, anyhow.”

She led him towards her sister, and left him with her, feeling assured that Sophy would administer an anodyne; Sophy had helped to heal wounds of her making before. She had the knack of putting a man in better conceit with himself; it is a knack which springs from the dictates of a kindly nature.

Peggy herself joined a group of young people who were listening with sceptical amusement to the history of the Hall ghost which Mr Errol, newly arrived, was relating. Peggy seated herself near him.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked.

“Well,” he replied with gravity, “there is so much which is incomprehensible that I cannot discredit things merely because I fail to understand them.”

She looked at him with interest, while the scepticism of the rest strove courteously to efface itself.

“I heard of the ghost from Robert,” she announced. “Hannah has seen it. But Robert didn’t seem to know very much about it. It is respectable to have a ghost. I hope it is a pleasant one.”

“There are two,” he said.

“Good gracious!” exclaimed Peggy. “Two misty apparitions! Hannah doesn’t own to seeing two. I might be able to stand one, but two would be the death of me. Who are they?”

“One is a hound,” he explained; “the other is a lady. They have been seen walking on the terrace in the dusk. They walk the length of the terrace and back, look towards the west, and disappear.”

“And then does something awful happen?” inquired one of the listeners.

“No; I never heard that anything happened. Nor does the apparition appear regularly. It has only been seen about three times, and always after dusk.”

“I shall watch for it,” said Peggy. “I am not in the least alarmed now I know there is a dog. I have never been afraid of a living dog; I couldn’t fear a dead dog. I feel nearly as brave as Robert.”

She described, almost in Robert’s own words, and with a droll mimicry of Robert’s manner, his professed contempt for what he could put his hand through and his gruesome familiarity with old bones. Robert was so well known a figure in Moresby, was known even to the guests staying at the Hall, that Peggy’s imitation of the sexton’s manner provoked the merriment of all her hearers. The vicar was as greatly amused as the rest.

“Robert may be very brave in the matter of ghosts,” he said; “but I have known him quail before something not usually considered terrifying.”

“What is that?” inquired Peggy.

“A woman,” he answered, and met her eyes and smiled.

Chapter Twenty Two

With the finish of the holidays the guests at the Hall went their several ways, and there was a lull in the feverish round of gaiety which had moved Moresby out of its accustomed calm, and had introduced into the usually contented breasts of the rustic portion of the community a dissatisfaction with their former quiet life and a profound respect for the new residents, quite apart from the prestige that descended upon them by virtue of their dwelling at the Hall. Even in the matter of the home farm, managed and worked entirely by women – which innovation had been looked on distrustfully by the sons of the soil – the Chadwicks were accorded a grudging recognition of success. The home farm was like to prosper. Moreover, it would not interfere with local farmers. Everything which it would produce was to be disposed of in markets which Moresby did not reach. Mrs Chadwick had no intention of using her wealth to the injury of her neighbours; and she made that clear to them before she set about stocking her farm.

Since there was capital at the back of the enterprise, since the farm was stocked with the best, and everything was up to date, and managers and workers alike were keen and experienced, Mrs Chadwick had no misgivings as to the ultimate result of this venture. It was a hobby of hers, and one upon which she spent much time and thought. A woman living in the country needed some outlet for her energy, she opined.

Robert, although he approved highly of Mrs Chadwick, was sternly opposed to the idea of women farming. Hadn’t he seen a woman “orched”? And didn’t he know how fearsome they were with cattle? Why, even the milking was done by men nowadays, and a lot better done, in his opinion.

Mrs Chadwick invited him to inspect the farm and the model dairy, and, because Robert interested her, she personally conducted his tour and explained things to him, and listened to his comments attentively, approving when he made a wise suggestion, which was seldom, and maintaining silence before his cavilling remarks. One proposal which she made out of the kindness of her heart threw Robert into such a fever of angry trepidation that for the time his admiration for Mrs Chadwick was seriously jeopardised – the proposal being that she should offer Bob’s young woman a position in the model diary. Robert stood still in the path and eyed her stonily.

“Don’t you do it, mum,” he said, with such earnestness of manner, so much angry opposition in his eyes, that Mrs Chadwick showed the surprise she felt. “Don’t you do it,” he repeated.

“But why?” she asked. “I hoped I might be doing you, through Bob, a little service.”

“You’ll be doin’ me a much greater service in leavin’ Bob’s young woman where ’er be,” he replied. “If ’er comes yere Bob’ll follow.”

“I should have thought you and Hannah would be pleased at that,” she said.

“Maybe Hannah would. I don’t doubt ’er would, ’cause ’er knows I’d be vexed. Do you suppose,” he added reproachfully, “that ’aving to go to church more’n once o’ Sundays, and sometimes in the week, I want to be kep’ awake o’ nights listenin’ to Bob ’ollering to the Lord? Hannah don’t mind, ’cause it isn’t ’er profession; but when a man makes ’is livin’ through the Church ’e wants ’is off-time free o’ it.”

“I see,” she said. “Yes; I had forgotten that. We will leave Bob’s young woman where she is.”

“Don’t think I’m not obliged to you, mum,” Robert hastened to say, relenting before her amiable reasonableness, “for thinking of it. But it wouldn’ be to your interest nohow. Bob’s young woman would give more time to ’er prayers than to your dairy. It’s all soul wi’ they, and nothin’ o’ conscience. I wouldn’ like you to be cheated like that there; no, I wouldn’. A lady wot is so generous as you be ought to ’ave ’er interests studied.”

Robert’s zeal, like the zeal of many conscientious objectors to the self-seeking of others, placed him beyond the proscribed limits of profiting through Mrs Chadwick’s generosity. He had profited handsomely during the Christmas week; he profited again on that crisp sunny morning when he parted from her after his inspection of the farm, and left her walking leisurely across the fields with the pekinese disporting itself beside her, running ahead of her in pursuit of imaginary rabbits and running back again for approbation of its sporting proclivities.

Where the fields were bisected by a country road Will Chadwick had undertaken to meet her and motor her back. It was rather beyond the hour fixed for the meeting, but Mr Chadwick was a patient man, and a knowledge of his wife’s habits prepared him for delay. He had brought Diogenes with him in the car because Diogenes had expressed the wish to accompany him; and Diogenes, not being blessed with the same amount of patience, had been allowed to dismount, and was putting in his time, as the pekinese was doing, in searching the hedges for possible sport. Diogenes was not a sporting dog; but when he saw a cat, or any other legitimate form of chase, he tried to cheat onlookers into believing that he was. A pose is detestable in man or beast; it not infrequently leads to his undoing. Diogenes posed so enthusiastically that he almost deceived himself into mistaking the pose for the quality it sought to emulate.

It was unfortunate that on this occasion, when he was especially bent on imposing on himself, and was pursuing his snuffling search for hidden prey among the dank fern-stalks and soft mould in the hedge, the pekinese should at the same moment be engaged in a similar form of deception on the farther side of the hedge. Diogenes detected the fur of its long coat through the wet, shining leaves, and though familiarity with the pekinese should have accustomed him to discriminate between it and a cat, the practice of self-deception had become such an obsession that he wilfully ignored this distinction and, with a low growl, burst through the hedge and seized his quarry and shook it playfully in a transport of delight, then laid the little limp body down and stood over it in an attitude of satisfied triumph and barked a cheerful accompaniment to Mrs Chadwick’s screams.

Mrs Chadwick made a dart forward and struck at Diogenes with her hand, to Diogenes’ pained surprise; then she gathered the pekinese up in her arms and fell to lamenting loudly.

Diogenes walked back to the car with an air of injured disgust and wagged a short, tentative tail at his master; but Mr Chadwick, ignoring these overtures, passed him, and was over the hedge in a trice and beside his disconsolate wife.

“Oh, I say, Ruby, I am sorry!” was all that he could articulate, as he gazed at the limp bit of fur in her arms and then into her weeping face.

He blamed himself for having brought Diogenes, but most of all he blamed Diogenes for doing the last thing on earth that might have been expected of him. As Mrs Chadwick continued to lament, and continued to hold the dead dog in her arms, his perturbation increased to the extent of causing him to swear.

“Damn that dog!” he exclaimed in exasperation, and put his arm about his wife’s shoulders, and took with his disengaged hand the limp, lifeless thing from her. “He didn’t suffer at all,” he assured her. “It was so quick, he couldn’t have realised that he was hurt.”

This knowledge was, of course, consoling to the bereaved mistress; but, beside her grief at the loss of her tiny pet, the consolation was insufficient to balance her distress. She laid her head on her husband’s shoulder and wept unrestrainedly, to the distrustful amazement of a cow which lifted its head above the hedge to stare at this singular grouping. Fortunately for the cow’s peace of mind Diogenes was by now thoroughly subdued, having gathered from the unusual noises disturbing the tranquillity of the day that this game, like another game he had played with Mr Musgrave’s cat, promised a less agreeable ending than he had foreseen. He recalled that on that occasion he had been beaten; so he lay down docilely beside the motor and feigned slumber, in the hope that when the fuss was over the cause of it would be forgotten. But Diogenes’ fate was even then being sealed on the other side of the hedge.

“Don’t cry, Ruby,” Mr Chadwick said. “It won’t bring the little beggar to life, you know; and you’ll make yourself sick. I’ll get you another pet, dear.”

This promise, though well meaning, was mistaken. In the first shock of her grief Mrs Chadwick recoiled from the suggestion.

“I couldn’t have another pet,” she wailed. “I loved him so. I couldn’t bear another dog in his place. I d-don’t want to see a dog again.”

“All right,” he said. “But buck up, Ruby. Come and get into the car, and I’ll drive you home.”

“I couldn’t endure to have that brute in with me,” she sobbed angrily.

“No, of course not. We’ll leave the beast behind. You shan’t be worried with the sight of him again. I’ll shoot him.”

He made the promise glibly, in the hope that this threat would rouse her. It roused her effectually, but not in the way in which he had intended. She looked up with a gleam of vindictive satisfaction in her eyes, showing through her tears.

“Oh, do!” she said. “Shoot him to-day. I couldn’t see him about after this.”

“All right,” he acquiesced, none too heartily. Diogenes was a valuable dog, and had, moreover, a winning way with him towards the people whom he liked, and Will Chadwick was certainly one of these. Mr Chadwick could no more have shot the dog with his own hand than he could have shot a child.

“I’ll see to it,” he said.

The first intimation Diogenes had that it was expected of him that he should walk home was when the car started and left him, mute and bewildered and bespattered with mud, in the road gazing after it. No word had been vouchsafed him, no look. From the silence and the absence of interest in himself he had been deluded into supposing that he was not held responsible for the evil that had been done; but with the disappearance of the car vague doubts disturbed him, and he started in a sour, halfhearted way to follow the car and face his destiny. Even had his intelligence been equal to grasping what that destiny was, so great is the force of habit that he would have returned inevitably to meet it.